


Cry Havoc

by rain_sleet_snow



Series: gathering stormclouds [3]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ben Solo Doesn't Turn to the Dark Side, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Feels, Angst and Humor, Ben Organa, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, F/M, Family Dynamics, Family Issues, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso, Mother-Son Relationship, Parent-Child Relationship, Past Poe Dameron/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Permanent Injury, Pre-Relationship, Serious Injuries, Swearing, The Force
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:07:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24476962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_sleet_snow/pseuds/rain_sleet_snow
Summary: Snapshots from the opening salvos of the Second Galactic Civil War, featuring Poe Dameron (pilot), Ben Organa (courier), Rose Tico (deckhand), Lyra Andor (senatorial aide), Rey (scavenger), Finn (stormtrooper), and R2-D2 (done with all this shit).
Relationships: BB-8 & R2-D2, Ben Solo & Rose Tico, Chewbacca & Ben Solo, Chewbacca & Han Solo, Finn & Rey (Star Wars), Leia Organa & Ben Solo, Leia Organa & Ben Solo & Han Solo, Leia Organa & Luke Skywalker & Han Solo, Leia Organa/Han Solo, Poe Dameron & Leia Organa, Poe Dameron/Ben Solo, R2-D2 & Ben Solo, Rey & Ben Solo, Rey/Original Female Character(s)
Series: gathering stormclouds [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/914373
Comments: 29
Kudos: 118





	Cry Havoc

**Author's Note:**

> Continues a previous fun AU fic or two I wrote, in which Lyra "Smiley" Andor (aged 11 1/4) accidentally changes the course of galactic history because she wanted a snack. https://archiveofourown.org/series/914373

The ship that touched down in Niima Outpost was a small freighter, classy and well-kept enough to attract a lot of interest. The young man who disembarked, yelling behind him that he wouldn’t be long and to keep the engines hot, turned some of those interested faces away. Tall, bulky, and furious, keeping his blaster loose enough in its holster that an accidental discharge might melt someone’s face off, he had the air of a man who could destroy Niima Outpost’s fragile equilibrium for good. The First Order had torn through the place like a sandstorm a week ago, and half the desert had been ripped up: the scavenging fields had been shelled and destabilised in some kind of air battle, stormtroopers had shaken down every settlement in a twenty-k radius, and there were rumours that an entire village had been massacred east of the quicksands.

Nobody wanted trouble. Still less trouble that was carrying a lightsaber in its inside jacket pocket.

Trouble held a wristcomm to his mouth and said: “All right, where are you? Show up, asshole. I’m not searching the place for you.”

One of the several strangers who had come to Niima Outpost in the aftermath of the devastation, claiming to have been run off his patch by stormtroopers, filtered his way through the sparse and carefully disinterested crowd and came to a halt before the pilot.

“Anyone would think you missed me, Ben.”

Ben’s eyes narrowed with exasperation. “Mom was worried sick, _Poe_.” He shook his head and turned back to the ship, ushering Poe firmly before him. “You look like you got on the wrong end of a bantha stampede.”

“I feel like I got on the wrong end of a bantha stampede. I don’t recommend the hospitality of the Knights of Ren.”

Ben’s footsteps halted slightly. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.” Poe pushed his curly hair off his forehead and boarded the freighter ahead of Ben. “Also, I crashed a TIE fighter.”

Ben snorted and hit the button to close the bay door. He’d feel better when they were in the air, he was sure, but right now just closing the door on Jakku’s hungry scavengers and the miasma of fear, greed and distrust was an incalculable relief.

“Hey, you try not crashing with an entire star destroyer’s complement of TIE fighters trying to shoot you down.”

“That’s not on my to-do list. Hey, Rose, we ready to go?”

A young woman in a boilersuit appeared in the gangway. “Artoo says we can go on your word, captain.”

“I keep telling you to call me Ben. Rose, this is Poe Dameron, Poe, Rose Tico.”

Poe shook hands, offering the young woman an easy smile. “Any relation to Paige Tico?”

Rose smiled back. Most people would, Ben thought. “She’s my sister.”

“Fantastic pilot with a bomber,” Poe said, with real enthusiasm. “But I bet you already know that. How did you end up stuck with this grumpy lump?”

“He’s not grumpy,” Rose said loyally.

“Must like you more than he does me.”

Ben rolled his eyes. “ _Rose_ has the sense the Force gave a nexu kitten. _You_ are an idiot. Rose, is the fresher back to normal yet? Dameron needs a shower. Or maybe an exorcism.”

Rose snorted, but didn’t disagree. “It’s not, but I know what the problem is now. I’ll just go look at it.”

“Thanks.” Ben made his way towards the cockpit, conscious of Poe following behind him. He dropped into the pilot’s seat, and heard the thump of Poe landing in the co-pilot’s place. Strictly speaking, a co-pilot wasn’t necessary; the _Firebird_ wasn’t the _Falcon_. But most freighters of this size had one anyway, as a precaution.

Ben hadn’t flown with Poe for years. It felt good, though, to have him at his left hand.

Ben cleared his throat. “Artoo, let’s jump and punch it.”

Artoo broke off in the middle of a series of Binary imprecations that covered Jakku, the Western Reaches, Poe Goddamned Dameron and the freighter’s navicomputer, and Ben’s ship lifted off.

“Since when do you have human crew?” Poe asked. “And why is Artoo with you?”

_That’s R2-D2 to you, you wet-behind-the-ears organic_ , Artoo whistled. _We are fucking miles behind schedule because you can’t get your own arse out of trouble._

Ben sighed and rubbed his temples. “Artoo, if you haven’t got anything nice to say, don’t be a dick about it. I offered to give Poe a lift. It’s factored into the schedule.”

_Factored in my arse, you just told her we’d be late._

Poe’s smile did not waver, which was how Ben knew it was fake.

“I have human crew because Rose was wasted on hydroponics and I offered her a job,” Ben said. “Artoo has agreed to join me because he says I need someone to keep me out of trouble.” He ran an eye over the hyperspace calculations. They were perfect, of course, because Artoo had been doing this for several decades before Ben was even born. “I signed on with the Resistance, so no complaints from there.”

“Welcome aboard,” Poe said generously. “Your old man can’t be happy with that if he’s running jobs with just him and Chewbacca.”

“He’s about as pleased as yours was.” Ben pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and finger. “How badly are you hurt?”

Poe said nothing.

“Did they use the Force on you?”

Poe nodded.

Ben felt anger well up in him again, and tilted his head back against his headrest, closed his eyes, and let it slide out of him with his next exhale. It was hard. Bits of fury clung. The Knights of Ren probably had a good idea, if they knew who Poe was, that they could get at Ben through Poe; and of course, they were perfectly right.

His wristcomm crackled with an incoming message. Ben glanced down at it and felt his ears heat.

_I fixed the fresher and I’ll be in my bunk with headphones on_ , Rose had written. _It sounds like you two have some things you need to sort out._

He swiped left to delete the message.

_Hyperspace coming up_ , Artoo warbled. _Next stop D’Qar and I can offload you and your feelings on a bunch of goddamn adults._

“Shut up, Artoo,” Ben said absently, and hauled himself out of his seat. Glancing at Poe, he saw that some of the tension had gone out of the other man with the jump to hyperspace. “Come on, Dameron. Rose says the fresher’s usable. I’ll find you some spare clothes and the medkit, and let’s see what we can do about patching you up.”

Twenty minutes later, Poe was a lot cleaner; strangely, that made him look more vulnerable. Or perhaps it was the fact that he was wearing a shirt of Ben’s that Ben had shrunk in the wash, and which was therefore only slightly oversized, and a pair of boxers that were loose on him. Perhaps it was just that he looked smaller, a trick of perspective. Perhaps it was the way he had dropped the false smile.

Perhaps it was the faint but distinct sense of pain coming off his Force presence, and the damage Ben was now inspecting.

“There are better healers in the world than me,” he said finally, laying Poe’s damaged hands down gently and casting an eye over the split lip and cracked cheekbone. “And I appreciate you might not feel safe with Force healing right now. Plus, fixing all this will likely wear you out. But I have enough bacta to deal with it, no problems, and the concussion has gone off - Poe, why are you looking at me like that?”

“The _General_ was worried sick, huh,” Poe said, very quietly.

There was a short silence. Ben cleared his throat and opened his mouth to say something, then shut it again helplessly.

“Work your magic,” Poe said, and it should have been a pick-up line, except for the tiredness in his eyes and the faint quirk of his lips that should have been a smirk. “I feel safe with you.”

***

General Leia Organa met them on the tarmac at D'Qar. The base had erupted into such controlled chaos that Ben had to slam his shields up to avoid a migraine; he knuckled one closed eye with the hand that wasn't holding Poe up by the back of his shirt, and stared at his mother.

"Your father called," Leia Organa said cheerfully. "He's found Commander Dameron's droid, the map, the stormtrooper who broke Dameron out, and a scavenger girl he thinks is a Jedi."

"What?" Ben said, gripping the back of Poe's shirt tighter so as not to drop him out of shock. "Dad called ahead? Uncle Chewie didn't make him?"

"He was worried you'd be upset about Dameron." Leia peered at her best pilot and visibly ignored her son turning mortified pink around the ears. "And I have to say, Dameron, I am very pleased to see you alive, but you are not looking well. Maybe we should postpone your debrief until you can stand up by yourself."

"I'm fine," Poe protested.

"Shall I let go and see how long it takes for you to fall over?" Ben asked.

Poe took a precautionary grasp of Ben's arm. "No, no, we're good." He straightened up and met Leia's eye firmly. "I just need some sleep, ma'am."

"Tell that to Major Kalonia." Leia waved over a team of medics, and Poe was hustled, protesting, onto a stretcher and shuffled briskly off to medical. Leia turned back to her son and raised an eyebrow.

"He'll be fine," Ben said gruffly. "He wasn't well treated, but I fixed up most of the physical damage."

"You are completely transparent," Leia said, lovingly. "You take after your father that way."

Ben heaved an enormous sigh. "Mom."

"I know, I know, I know." Leia patted Ben's shoulder, an operation which just fell short of requiring her to stand on tip-toes. "I don't have good news for you, I'm afraid. Han had a look at the map; he doesn't think it's complete."

Ben's heart sank. He opened his mouth, then shut it again, then rubbed his hands over his face.

"I know." Leia gripped his arm. "We will find your uncle. And whatever he was searching for to counter Snoke."

"I wish he'd let me go with him," Ben mumbled.

"Luke has a long history of running off without backup. It's nothing you did. " Leia sighed. "He didn't tell me, either. And I'm afraid we have bigger problems. Intel thinks the First Order are very close to an operational planet-killer."

"Aw, no," Ben groaned, because there was nothing else to say. "Fuck. Mom. What do we do?"

"Keep fighting," Leia Organa said. Her eyes were tired, but her smile was wry. "What else is there to do?"

***

Just outside the Hosnian system, no more than a day after Ben Organa had returned Poe Dameron to D'Qar, a violent shockwave rolled through senatorial corvette _Cloud Princess_. It knocked her off course, battered her shields, and threw her passengers and crew out of bunks and across rooms.

"What the Hutt-loving hell was that?" demanded Senator Calrissian, disentangling himself from his cape and his protocol droid.

"I have no idea," his aide replied, scrambling to her feet and rushing back into the cabin she had fallen out of. "Sir, are you all right?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine. Let's see what Captain Greel has to report."

They staggered up to the cockpit and found chaos. They were surrounded by what looked like an asteroid field when they had been in clear space, and the ship was being repeatedly struck by small pieces of debris. Nobody had any idea what was going on, least of all Captain Greel.

"Can we raise planetary traffic control?" Senator Calrissian demanded. "Nearby ships? Anything?"

"No," Captain Greel said, yellow undertones in her Mirialan-green skin deepening with fear. "There's just nothing. Nothing at all. I'm not sure our communications are even working in this… debris field."

"Debris field," Senator Calrissian murmured, then raised his voice. "Miss Andor."

His aide didn't startle or turn her head from where she was leaning on the deck rail, staring into the blackness. "Senator Calrissian."

"See if you can raise your parents on the comm." Senator Calrissian's jaw set hard. "And if you can't get them… get me Leia Organa."

"Sir," Lyra Andor answered, and left the bridge at a decorous walk.

Just out of Lando Calrissian's hearing, she broke into a run.

***

Artoo landed the _Firebird_ on a flattish bit of land near Maz Kanata's cantina and Rose Tico ran out onto a battlefield shouting for a medic. Finn grabbed her by one shoulder and pulled her upright when she tripped on a dead stormtrooper and almost fell on her face.

"What the hell's wrong?" Poe demanded.

"It's Ben. He collapsed. He's conscious but he's kind of not all there and his nose is bleeding. I had to get Artoo to land -"

Half the Resistance personnel present bolted in the direction of the _Firebird_ , trailing Finn behind them, and found only small spatters of blood in the cockpit.

"Ben!" Poe yelled. "Ben, where -"

_Cool your fucking boosters, Designation-Curly_ , Artoo bleeped. _He's gone to throw up._

"I'b here," Ben shouted back, rather muffled. "I'b okay. Bind de bess."

Rose pulled a mouse droid down from its charging station and set it on the floor so it could clean the deck plating - though she had to snatch it up quickly as Chewbacca, Han and Poe all stampeded towards the fresher. Ben was sitting on the floor, face pale and greenish, dried blood cracking on his lips and cheeks, and he smelled slightly of vomit; but he was awake, and his eyes were clear and lucid. His uncle roared and lifted him carefully out of the doorway to a more comfortable seat: Ben pulled a face but didn't object.

"What is it, kid?" Han said urgently. "What happened?"

Ben leaned his head back against the bulkhead and closed his eyes. "Hosnia," he said. "Hosnia's gone."

There was an uneasy silence.

"You mean… Hosnia A?" Rose suggested, uncertainly. "Hosnian Prime?"

Ben shook his head.

Han Solo sat shakily down next to his son. Poe crouched down and took Ben's hand, rubbing his thumb over the back of it; Ben gripped tightly in return.

"Starkiller," Finn said quietly. "They must have fired Starkiller. The whole system'll be gone."

"S'what it feels like," Ben replied.

Rose sat down on the deck with a thump, narrowly missing the mouse droid. Chewbacca howled. Finn folded his arms and hunched his shoulders, like he was trying to make himself look more insignificant.

"Like a million voices cried out in the Force," Han muttered, as if he were remembering something, and wrapped an arm tightly around his son's broad shoulders.

"But that's - so many people," Rose said, sounding faint and stunned. "That's - the whole Senate, that's -"

"Aww, shit," Han said, rubbing a hand over his face. His eyes had gone very bright. "Lando. Aww - _fuck_. He deserved better than this."

"Someone’s gonna have to tell Uncle Cassian and Aunt Jyn," Ben said, head bowing forwards towards his knees.

"Oh, kriff, no, that's true as well." Han leaned back. "How old is - was - shit. That kid of theirs. Lando's aide."

"Lyra? Twenty-two," Poe said. His face had also turned pale and set.

"We're never going to be able to count the losses," Ben said heavily. He took a deep breath in and let it out slowly in the horrified silence, then straightened up and looked up at the ceiling. "Rose, you good to take care of the ship?"

"I'm fine," Rose said, clambering to her feet. "What about you?"

"I'm okay. Better once I get this stuff off my face." Ben got to his feet. "Mom's just hit atmo. We should tell her what we can." He looked across at Finn. "You're the stormtrooper who got Poe out. Name's Finn, isn't it?"

Rose stepped back involuntarily. Finn's jaw set slightly. "Yeah."

"Thanks for that. He'll live to piss me off another day."

"Hey," Poe said half-heartedly, digging around in the fresher for a packet of wipes. Ben ignored him.

“You're welcome," Finn said, and then burst out: "They took Rey. The Knights of Ren. They'll have taken her to Starkiller Base. That's where they keep the – you know – the people who can -"

There was a short, confused silence.

“Use the Force,” Ben said. His eyes had narrowed as he stared at Finn.

Finn grimaced, but nodded.

“Is that classified?”  
  
“You don’t talk about it,” Finn replied in half a hissing whisper, as if Ben’s question had been somehow indecent. “You don’t talk about _them_. Otherwise…”  
  
Poe winced. “Okay, point taken.” He dropped a packet of wipes in Ben’s lap.

"Otherwise they might have noticed you,” Ben supplied, not quite as merciful. “And you really needed them not to notice you, right?”

“No _shit_ , man, have you seen what they’re like? They would have killed me.”

“There are worse things they could have done to you than killed you,” Ben said, with conviction.

“Uh –“

"Kid, this is not a great time for you to take after old Kenobi," Han complained, stretching out his back.

Ben grimaced, picked up a wipe, and tried to clean off the dried blood. "You're Force-sensitive, Finn. Congratulations." Finn's jaw dropped and Poe blinked hard; Ben almost smiled. "And this kid Rey is Force-sensitive too?”

"Enough that Maz tried to give her Luke's old lightsaber." Han shook his head. "She panicked. Ran off. The troopers got her then."

Ben got to his feet, leaning heavily on the wall. He waved a hand at the bin and threw the balled-up wipe at it when it opened. Most of the blood was gone from his face, but he still looked grim. "We're all having a busy day, I guess. Well, come on, Finn. If you want to get your friend back, the person you need to talk to right now is General Organa."

"I'll just- go check on the _Falcon_ ," Han said hurriedly.

Chewbacca roared judgementally. Ben turned around and gave his father a flat stare.

Everyone not related to a Skywalker immediately cleared the area.

***

En route for D'Qar, the _Firebird_ 's comms crackled. Rose Tico, studying for a more advanced engineering qualification with her feet up on the dashboard, dropped her datapad and leaned forward to take the transmission.

"This is Firebird, Black One."

"Hi, Rose, I'm looking for Ben. Is he around?"

Rose glanced back through the open cockpit door. "No, he's been meditating since we went to hyperspace."

"It's not important."

"I'll tell him you called."

"Thanks, Rose."

Rose ended the transmission, and bent down to pick up her datapad. Artoo, linked up to the ship's systems, weebled something insulting.

"It's none of my business," Rose said firmly, and got up to find Ben.

She called him Captain Organa in front of others, or Captain Solo, if they'd gone somewhere it wasn't wise to use his mother's name. He insisted that she call him Ben, though, authority sitting uneasily across his shoulders, and although he might be the son of legends and reasonably impressive himself it was difficult to think of him as an object of awe after seeing him hungover, listening to Artoo barrack him, or watching him break a mug because he didn't think about picking it up. Outrunning Hutts with him while he swore and pleaded the _Firebird_ for just a few more knots per hour had been pretty impressive, but then he'd stood up, triumphant with relief, and immediately cracked his head on a low-hanging scope. Rose had patched him back up with steristrips while Artoo heckled from the cockpit.

And then of course the disastrous love life, which Rose hoped never to know any more about than she already did. It was painful watching a grown man pine with all six foot three inches of him. Now that Rose had finally met the famous Commander Dameron it seemed like he was equally lost, so really, what was the problem? Men.

Captain Organa was the son of legends with a legend of his own to forge. Ben was a muppet, but he was a good boss. Rose preferred to think of him as Ben.

Ben meditated quite a lot. It was a Force thing, and he didn’t really talk about it. A lot of people asked Rose what it was like sharing a ship with a Jedi, but she could honestly say that if she hadn’t known that was why he was meditating, and if he didn’t sometimes carry a lightsaber, she wouldn’t have noticed. He almost never used the Force, at least not in any way that a normal human being would notice. Some of the conspiracy theorists stared so hard you’d think they were after something totally different to a Jedi, so perhaps they saw something. But they were also the ones who lectured Rose about what a Jedi needed, when so far as Rose could tell all a Jedi _needed_ was regular quiet time and energy-dense meals.

Ben had specifically said it was okay to let him know about stuff, even if he was meditating, and if that changed he’d tell her. He hadn’t said anything about it this time, and besides, it was possible that talking to Commander Dameron would cheer him up. It was obvious they cared about each other.

She knocked on the door to his cabin, which opened.

“Hope nothing’s on fire,” Ben said.

She shook her head. “Commander Dameron called on the comm to talk to you. He said it wasn’t important, but I told him I’d let you know.”

“Oh. Thanks.”

“Artoo really hates him, huh.”

“He doesn’t hate him, he just…” Ben stretched his legs out in front of him, one at a time. “Artoo likes taking sides. It’s his idea of fun. Poe and I have some history and Artoo decided, for reasons of his own, that Poe should have behaved better. That’s bullshit, and it’s been at least ten years, but Artoo’s still holding grudges that go all the way back to the Clone Wars, so there’s no stopping him.” Ben got to his feet. “I’ll call Poe back. Thanks for letting me know.”

Rose hesitated in the doorway. “This stormtrooper guy.”

“Finn?”

“Him.” Rose shifted uncomfortably. “How do we know we can trust him?”

Ben raised his eyebrows at her. “I guess we don’t yet. Colonel Andor will need to do a debrief. But I don’t sense any dishonesty from him, and he really didn’t know he was Force-sensitive.”

“Should we be letting him onto D’Qar?”

“He knows Starkiller Base,” Ben said. “We need him. We don’t have a choice.”

“It seems like a risk.”

“Everything’s a risk,” said Ben, and sighed. “But you’re not wrong.”

Rose nodded, and stepped out of the way. Ben headed back to the cockpit, and she retreated to the ready room, to take up her studies again. From here she could faintly hear Ben call Commander Dameron, and the two of them strike up a conversation. It seemed Commander Dameron just wanted to check on Ben. It seemed Ben, no matter what he said, was pleased to be checked on.

Rose really didn’t see what was stopping them. She stared at her textbook, and tried not to think about the resigned, doomed look in Finn’s eyes when he talked about Starkiller Base.

***

“You want to undo these bindings and leave the room,” Rey said, trying to reach that stillness she sometimes found when flying, that secret balance point where she could win any fight she started.

Her swollen and bloody lower lip cracked open again, and the stupid trick didn’t even work.

***

“We can take the _Falcon_ ,” Han said, spreading his hands. “First Order doesn’t know I’ve got her back yet. Go in fast, find the Jedi, blow that oscillator up, get out quick.”

Kaydel Ko Connix coughed and stared expressively at the screen where she normally sat monitoring First Order communications.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Half the galaxy knows you’ve got that ship back,” General Organa said extremely dryly. “Dear. And if you didn’t want that to happen you should have come straight here instead of stopping at Takodana to get Maz Kanata to bring me a message.”

Han Solo opened his mouth to protest.

“We’ll take the _Firebird_ ,” Ben interrupted, trying to make it sound as final as possible, and stifled a blush when Poe grinned conspiratorially at him.

***

The _Cloud Princess_ was cleared for landing not twenty minutes after the _Firebird_ took off, and Lyra Andor ran down the ramp into her father’s arms.

He caught her, and held her tightly; her mother seized them both, and pressed her head against Lyra’s as they embraced.

“I’m so glad -” said Jyn Erso, “I’m so glad -” and then she stopped.

“We love you so much,” Cassian Andor said. “Starkiller is targeting this system. Get back on that ship and go.”

Lyra’s eyes widened impossibly: her father’s dark eyes set above her mother’s broad cheekbones. Her grip tightened on her parents. “No! No, I won’t, I’m staying with you, no -”

“Smiley,” her mother interrupted. “Smiley, come on.”

There was a long and horrible pause.

“Come with me,” Lyra whispered.

Her parents’ tired smiles were her only answer. Cassian Andor kissed his daughter’s forehead; Jyn Erso took her by the shoulders, and turned her round to face the sky.

***

Han Solo stared at his son in the pilot’s seat of the _Firebird_ , and said: “So I guess this is just like old times.”

“If it were just like old times I’d be in the co-pilot’s seat doing my homework,” Ben said, but he smiled. Chewbacca chuckled.

“Listen. What do you think of that kid?”

“Finn?” Ben pulled the tie out of his hair and ran his hands through it, tweaking the small braids woven through it to check they were still in place, and then retied it. “He’s not lying to us. He does know Starkiller Base. And he’s not a traitor.”

“I figured that out. Kid’s the worst actor I’ve ever seen.” Han leaned against the back of his son’s chair. “That and Erso cleared him. It’s just hard to believe. A stormtrooper just walking away from the First Order?”

“A _princess_ and a guy like _you_?” Ben retorted, and Han flicked the back of his head.

“Piss off, Dad.” Ben leaned forward, and his eyes glanced across the monitors for reassurance before he leaned back.

_You should talk to her when we get back,_ Chewbacca yowled. _I’m sick of refereeing._

“Tell me about it,” Ben said.

“That’s between your mother and me,” Han Solo said, striving to achieve some dignity.

_Just because you’ve never been able to stop an argument since Luke got lost_ , Chewbacca rumbled.

Han threw up his hands. “Outnumbered! Always outnumbered.”

“Aunt Jyn agrees with me,” Ben persisted.

_Jyn Erso’s got brains._

“I’m gonna check on the kid,” Han announced, and stamped out.

***

“It’ll be fine, Solo! We’ll use the Force.”

“That’s not how the Force works!”

“Well, Dad, funny story -”

***

The amazing thing about finding Finn was that he’d brought a full-on rescue mission for her, including Chewbacca and someone enormous Han Solo said was his son. The slightly less amazing thing was that Rey already had all of the Knights of Ren on her tail, and didn’t see the rescue mission as likely to improve matters.

Also she had a number of broken fingers and her ribs were complaining, but she’d had worse. And she didn’t want to think about the way the Knights had prised her brain open and rifled through it, turning over her memories like substandard parts Unkar Plutt wouldn’t pay portions for.

She was a lot more concerned about blowing up Starkiller and getting out of there. Which seemed likely to be complicated by the way the land was shifting under them, snow and trees groaning alike as the surface of the planet ripped and tore. Rey staggered on a damaged ankle and pushed forward into the trees, following some distant sense that told her where the _Firebird_ was - or possibly following Han, running as fast as he could towards it.

A warning howl from Chewbacca told her almost as soon as the creeping sense of wrongness did that the Knights had found them. Rey sobbed, and choked on her fear, but the _Firebird_ was still too far away for her to outrun the Knights. She skidded to a halt and looked wildly around for a branch, a rock, a weapon, anything -

“Get the fuck out of here,” screamed Han Solo’s son. “Take my dad, get the _Firebird_ , come back for us!”

Rey’s jaw dropped as he pulled a lightsaber from his jacket and lit it up, a solid, gleaming bar of purple. “You have a lightsaber!”

“We have a fucking _problem_ ,” he bawled back. “This is a fucking _trap_!”

Finn lit up his own lightsaber, and Rey’s eyes went to the stalking shadows in the howling darkness, the blood-red slashes of more lightsabers flickering into being, one by one.

She turned on her heel and ran.

It felt like centuries, but was probably minutes, by the time they’d brought the _Firebird_ back and were hovering over the battlefield, which heaved and tossed as the planet’s mantle juddered and burned. Han and Chewbacca had slid into the pilot and co-pilot’s seats like they belonged there, and the astromech was swearing consistently in Binary as he tried to keep the ship steady.

Finn was on the floor and Han Solo’s son - Ben, his name was Ben, Han said the name like it was being torn from him - was standing over him. Bodies lay scattered, but more Knights were standing than not, and Chewbacca couldn’t hit them without hitting Ben. Rey gripped the back of Chewbacca’s seat with her unbroken hand and stared fiercely into the darkness, heart in her mouth, searching for a way out, looking for something she could use -

***

Ben didn’t feel the block fail, didn’t see the blow that cut through the wrist of his saber hand, and when he heard himself scream, there was nothing but burning. He drew breath into empty lungs as he staggered, and the desert roared; he exhaled, and the gale blew before him as he fell.

***

\- Ben’s lightsaber and hand went flying, and so did the Knights, like they’d been scattered by a shockwave. Chewbacca and Han both shouted, and Rey thought of the way the land tore into cracks and rifts, and she thought of how star destroyers strained and ripped under years of gravity, and then she shut her eyes and reached out and _pulled_.

The land growled, and opened at her request; and the Knights fell.

When Chewbacca and Han landed the _Firebird_ they both ran out to grab Ben, who was already stumbling to his feet and stooping over Finn like some unwieldy but well-meaning crow; and then when Han hustled Ben inside Chewbacca picked Finn up, gently and carefully. Rey wanted to sob at the bloody, burned ruin the Knights had made of his back, but her eyes and lips were stinging from the cold, and the earth was rolling under her feet, and every secret instinct was telling her it was time to go.

She picked up the lightsabers and ran back to the ship. All things considered, she felt it was probably best to leave the severed hand, but she did check it for rings or other jewellery first.

***

Cleaned up, with his foreshortened arm in a sling and a large dose of painkillers, Ben Organa looked in much better shape than Finn did. Rey bit her tongue on resentment. She wished she’d kept the lightsaber and sold it instead of giving it back to him; the kind of medical care Finn would need if he survived was worth a lot of credits.

“Will he be okay?”

Ben did at least have this one virtue: he told the truth. “I don’t know.”

Rey held Finn’s hand, and believed with as much of her heart as she could find that his own would keep beating.

“What made you say it was a trap?” she asked, when she felt like she could form words again. Ben hadn’t gone anywhere.

“They were expecting me,” Ben said, his eyes on Finn. “They knew Finn would come after you, and they knew I’d show up to keep both of you out of their hands. They wanted all three of us.”

“Because we’re Jedi?”

“You might be,” Ben said. “I’m not.”

***

Poe met Ben in the medical bay, when his new stump had been cleaned up and he was trying to drift off under the influence of sedatives. It wasn’t working great.

“Thought you’d be asleep by now,” Poe said.

“I wish,” Ben said, prising his eyelids back open. Poe had showered and changed out of uniform into sloppy, soft trousers and a GREEN SQUADRON STYLE t-shirt that had been much too big on Shara Bey and just about fit her son. Ben wondered if Poe was always a clothing thief, or only when he was miserable.

“You look shit.”

“Thanks, Poe,” Ben said snidely, closing his eyes again. “Fuck off.”

Poe laughed, which wasn’t fair; and then he sat down in the visitor’s chair, and ran his hand through Ben’s hair, which was substantially less fair. Ben felt himself leaning into the touch like a sad little tooka kitten.

“This is a pretty terrible family tradition to be carrying on,” Poe said, very gently.

“Fuckin’ tell me about it, right?”

Poe’s thumb brushed over the shell of Ben’s ear. “Move down a bit,” he said, and heaved himself onto the bed, wedging Ben’s pillows behind his back and narrowly avoiding sitting on Ben’s head.

“Force’s sake, Dameron,” Ben complained, “I’m trying to sleep here.”

“Yeah. And look how well that’s working out for you.” Poe pressed his back against the wall, pushed the bedside table with a foot until there was enough room for his legs, and settled Ben’s head on his lap.

Ben let out a deep, soft breath, quite without meaning to.

“Yeah,” Poe murmured, sliding his fingers through Ben’s hair. “Come on. There.”

Ben opened his mouth to remonstrate with him, and fell asleep instead.

***

Rey was not a huge fan of the Resistance’s base. It was extremely loud and she had nothing to do there. She’d asked Chewbacca for work, and he had given her some tasks, but he was distracted by Ben’s injuries, as were Han and the General. The General was otherwise fully occupied by the aftermath of the Senate being blown up by the First Order, which Rey had to admit sounded like a big deal, even though it was weirdly distant from her life. What did the Republic have to do with the Outer Rim?

Well, if she was signing on with the Resistance - and it looked like she had - she would probably need to start caring about that kind of thing.

_The belonging you seek lies ahead of you._ Rey flinched and tried to forget about Maz Kanata and her too-kind cruelties.

Rey spent all of visiting hours sitting with Finn, and then, when they closed, she went back to the _Falcon_ and checked all of its negative power couplings, and then went to the _Firebird_ and went over all the battle damage, because Artoo said none of these goddamn kids did an acceptably good job on his ship.

“I thought it was Ben’s ship,” Rey whistled back.

_He’s just the organic in charge_ , Artoo warbled, and that made her laugh.

It was late when she was done, and she almost missed the end of the meal serving in the mess. Not that it would have been a problem - she had her own food stash - but people came and looked for her if she didn’t show up. Rey didn’t like that they could find her.

A young woman her own age sat down at the same table as her and ignored her. It was soothing enough that Rey felt comfortable sitting with her; too many people asked her too many questions about who she was and what she was doing. But this woman looked like she’d been asked a lot of questions too, or maybe had a lot of questions to ask, and she looked like she was pretty sick of that as well.

She looked rich, Rey noted absently. Health like that, soft cheeks and glossy hair, wasn’t cheap on Jakku; neither were clothes as solid and colourful as the ones the woman was wearing, or the little silver hoops that danced down the shells of her pierced ears. But maybe that kind of thing was normal around here. The doctors had made a lot of distressed noises about Rey’s nutritive profile, whatever that was when it was at home, and the quartermaster had issued her with a lot of new clothes that she saw no reason to wear while her current ones weren’t worn out.

Rey wondered if the other woman had done the elaborate braids she was wearing herself, or if someone else had. They were pretty.

“Can I help you?” said the woman, lifting her head, and Rey blinked and shook herself.

“No. Sorry,” she blurted.

The woman smiled at Rey, and Rey smiled back instinctively. “Rey, isn’t it? I’m Lyra.”

“Hi,” Rey said, and immediately cursed herself for a fool.

“You helped bring in a piece of the map, didn’t you?” Lyra said, like she thought that was impressive.

“It didn’t turn out to be worth anything, though.” Rey winced.

“No-one’s really had a chance to look that hard at it yet,” Lyra said, politely overlooking the fact that Rey was some kind of idiot.

“It was really BB-8 that did the hard work.”

Lyra smiled more broadly. “I’m sure BB-8 stole the Millennium Falcon, fought off a squadron of TIE fighters -”

“Don’t underestimate him,” Rey protested.

“I’m not. I’m not underestimating you, either.”

Rey reddened, and changed the subject. “Were you supposed to be - I don’t know, looking at the map?”

“I’m not supposed to be doing anything,” Lyra said. “I’m a senatorial aide and the whole Senate just blew up, so until the Resistance figures out what I can do, I have nothing to do but be mad at my parents.” She blinked sharply and covered it with a broad grin. “But I could analyse the map, yes. If I had access to a navicomputer.”

Rey blinked back at her. “I have the codes to the _Falcon_ ,” she offered. “Han says his navicomputer is the best in the galaxy, and I’m pretty sure he’s right. And I think BB-8 would let me have a copy of the map if I asked nicely.”

“Are you inviting me over to hang out and do some illicit cartography?” The grin changed to a smirk. Rey watched it, fascinated.

“I- um,” she said. “Only if you want to.”

“My friends call me Smiley,” Lyra announced.

***

Artoo insisted on escorting BB to the _Falcon_ , because (as he said) she got into an incredible amount of trouble for such a small droid, and he would not have her getting Designation-Smiley and Designation-Scavenger into more trouble than they were already predisposed towards.

“I don’t know what you think is going to happen between here and the _Falcon_ ,” Rey said.

“What’s on this planet that we can’t handle anyway?” Lyra said cheerfully. Rey was beginning to see where the nickname came from.

“Don’t jinx us,” Rey said.

Lyra bumped her shoulder affectionately. It felt like some kind of an electric shock. “Sorry.”

The navicomputer took hours to complete the decrypting of the map fragment, which turned out to have been thoroughly scrambled. Rey cleaned blasters while Lyra set the decryption running, and Lyra braided Rey’s hair while it ran, and then they both fell asleep and were startled awake in the early hours of the morning by a truly incredible streak of bad language in Binary.

_THAT BANTHAFUCKING ORGANIC SHITFACE!_ Artoo shrieked. **_I_** _HAVE THE REST OF THAT MAP!_


End file.
